


and all that tosh

by potted_music



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-06
Updated: 2015-05-18
Packaged: 2018-03-29 07:59:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3888529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potted_music/pseuds/potted_music
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>By nature as well as by choice, James is not prone to stopping at half-measures. Even he, however, would agree that falling in love with not one but two of his superiors was taking it a bit too far. It’s unclear whether the fact that said superiors are as good as married to each other makes it better or worse.</p><p> </p><p>Fill of this prompt @ dressing-room3: "I just want me some James Lancelot love here, and who better to give it to him than his two mentors? Bonus if Harry/Merlin is already an established relationship, but Lancelot just seems to fit right in"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

James did not know Lee all that well, nor did he want to. A significant difference in age, class, education and predispositions made anything but superficial politeness between them unlikely, and while James was gracious, impeccably so, he would have never stepped out of his way to develop something more akin to friendship. There’s a measure of regret to what he feels now, huddled in a chopper flying over Afghanistan, but it is tempered by sickly curiosity. Against his better judgment, James chuckles: nothing can make the most boring man seem marginally more interesting as effectively as a good self-sacrifice, but then, that’s our conditioned reaction to certain tropes, developed through centuries of enforced Christianity. He rolls the phrase on his tongue, as if he could trot it out during one of the dinners at the estate. By the end of his first year of training, he’s so out of touch with his family that he no longer has anything insulting to say about the regular crowd; and now that he was made an agent, the chasm, he knows, will only grow deeper.

James is almost upset by how little of the flight back is about him. James knew something was wrong, something other and more disturbing than the obvious dead body in front of them, when Harry apologized to Merlin and assured him that this was not his fault. Since then, Harry has not taken his eyes off Merlin for a second, as if the man was made of glass. In James’ informed opinion, Merlin is about as breakable as a jellyfish, but he sets the fact aside in his mind, along with other, more relevant Merlin-related facts: Merlin takes up a disproportionately large space in James’ mind; Harry and Merlin are joined at the hip, or as good as; Harry believes Merlin needs to be handled with care.

“Why would he do that?” James asks, finally lifting his gaze at Merlin, more to attract the man’s attention than out of any genuine curiosity. “He has a family, why would he?”

Merlin examines him, head cocked to the side. “But don’t you see? He jumped precisely because he had family. We can train you to gauge the operative situation, or to obey commands, or not to miss. Love trains you into believing that there are things worth protecting at the cost of your life, and nothing but.”

James winces, hoping to cover a blush spreading treacherously over his cheeks. To the best of his knowledge, Lee was good mates with Harry, and not too keen on Merlin. Had Merlin’s trite theory been true, it was he, James, who should have jumped, the love-sick idiot. He sneers, “So does blackmail. Or clinical depression, for that matter.”

“You did well, Lancelot. You will make Kingsman proud,” Merlin says awkwardly, and James is suddenly painfully aware that the comforting scaffolding of their ascribed roles – a mentor and a trainee, an experienced agent and a wide-eyed rookie – is now gone, suddenly yanked from under his feet.

During training, Merlin has disassembled each of the recruits and built them up from scratch into a persona Kingsman demanded. Even as he cannot help glancing at Merlin to gauge the man’s reaction every time he makes a joke or speaks up at all, James is keenly aware just how worn and perverse his desire is: Galatea having the hots for Pygmalion, his touch branding all the surfaces, and all that tosh.

He stretches out on the couch and pulls the blanket over his head. Kingsman might have the best private jets, yet blankets somehow are the standard deal, ridiculously flimsy, barely worth the name. James shakes a bit, either from the chill, or from adrenaline finally catching up. He doubts if he’ll be able to fall asleep, and yet he does.

The next time he comes to, some three hours later, Merlin and Harry are nowhere to be seen. He sits up, rubbing sleep out of his eyes, and then he is suddenly aware of the slaps of skin coming from the toilet cubicle. 

James recoils. All the recruits assumed that Merlin and Harry were close, but it was one of those jokes that were only funny as long as they were not true; and, moreover, such public displays were only acceptable as long as they were meant to _épater la bourgeoisie_ , like wearing an ascot, or breeding white pheasants- or wanting your mentor, he adds uncharitably.

He cannot help what he wants, much like he cannot help imagining what is happening in that cubicle, not full five yards away from him. Sliding back under the blanket, he listens to the obscene wet slaps and grunts, picturing Merlin bending Harry over, slamming into him, his fingers tangled in Harry’s curly hair. When he squeezes his eyes shut, he can almost smell sweat and semen, can see Merlin’s balls connecting with the back of Harry’s thighs. Or could it be the other way around, Merlin perched over Harry’s lap, riding him in a frantic rhythm, sinking ever deeper onto his cock, Harry’s fingers leaving deep read marks on his thighs? This is almost voyeuristic, and James, the well-mannered young man that he is, is only fine with voyeurism as long as the other parties consent, so he feels guilty for the images flooding his mind, and angry at Merlin and Harry for putting him in this position.

James flips over onto his belly, trying to rub his erection out. In the cubicle, one of them, the voice unrecognizable in their abandon, lets out a short, almost pained cry, immediately bitten off. James imagines a palm pressed across a face, leaving an angry red outline; hips slamming into hips harder in punishment for the indiscretion. He thrashes and comes without warning, his urges taking over his mind, and curls up on himself, wincing at the wetness in his pants. In the cubicle, the slaps grow faster, less steady; there’s a thump, as if one of them connected with a wall, trying unsuccessfully to keep the balance, and then silence.

Huddling under the blanket, he tries to steady his breathing. It would not do to let on that he witnessed this.

As they finally come out, Harry whispers, quiet but urgent, the voice like a knife held to Merlin’s throat,

“If you want to leave, leave. You took your sabbatical, you know I missed you like a limb, but it was not a bad year. We managed. I can live without you. I cannot live with the threat of you leaving.”

James catalogues that too, with jealousy and pained wonder. Throughout training, Merlin stood for everything Kingsman represented: discretion, deadly efficiency, the sense of the absurd that comes from businesslike dealings with death. James is angry at having been denied the knowledge of the other Merlin, who was no stranger to doubt, and guilty, as if he were caught red-handed. This facet of Merlin’s life does not belong to him; not that he will stop prying.


	2. Chapter 2

“Just to make this crystal clear, sir: you _are_ aware that this is what knighthood was originally about, aren’t you? My entire family has been bred for killing people, and little else.”

It has been two months since James was made Lancelot, and he might as well still be in training for all it changed.

“And who was the last family member to do any actual shooting?” Merlin asks absent-mindedly, without looking up from his screens.

“Great-grandpa, at Somme. It’s mostly pheasants after that, but my point still stands.”

He listens to Merlin frantically typing, thinks of walking over and placing his palms on that skull of his. That, at least, would probably get a reaction out of the man, James thinks, knowing all the while that he will never try.

“I don’t want to be one of those decorative young men who are only there to, oh, _preserve our cultural heritage._ ”

“And you proved that you are not, by making it here.” Merlin finally swivels around in his chair and looks up at James with what seems like genuine curiosity.

“I want to do some real preservation of that cultural heritage of ours,” James says, jutting out his chin impatiently. “Guns blazing. Martini swirling.”

“And you will, when the right assignment comes,” Merlin says, turning back to his screens.

“Wouldn’t you agree that this is dishonest of you-” he starts saying, and fortunately for him, the door to the side room slams open, and Harry waltzes in.

“He can come as my backup for the next one,” Harry drawls.

Merlin raises an eyebrow. “He can, but he does not need to.”

“I’m here, third person is widely considered impolite under the circumstances,” James chimes in, as Merlin nods.

Merlin agrees, James suspects, just so that Merlin-and-Harry would stay a united front, at least to the outside observer; and, he reckons, Harry’s also aware of that.

Which is how he ends up on a honeypot assignment with Harry.

“Watch and learn, oh youngster, watch and learn,” Harry drawls, winking at himself in a floor-to-ceiling mirror.

If not for Merlin, he could have fallen for Harry, of course, James thinks. Of the two, Harry is by far the friendlier, the smoother; everybody’s younger brother who for some reason wants to be seen as an older. James leans in and loosens the knot of Harry’s tie a bit, unbuttons the top button of his shirt.

Harry gives himself a once-over and nods minutely, his expression growing all the more snide. “Of course I’m the man for the job.”

James finishes for him, “What is the job, by the way?”

They high-five in the shared glee of a quote they both recognize, and how could they not, raised on and molded by the stories of dark places to which idealism can lead a young gentleman of an adventurous predisposition.

James’ assignment is completely bogus, of course. Merlin was right: it was a firmly one-man job where an additional agent would only raise suspicions. They enter at a seven minute interval. By the time James gets in, Harry is already planted at the bar, leaning against it casually with his elbow, a martini in hand.

James prowls the perimeter of the casino floor, appraising; at a quick count, the babysitters far outnumber the bodies they are to mind. Just to show off, he rattles off the positions of the guards of their mark, spread around the room, only to be rewarded by Merlin’s dry chuckle on the other end of the line.

“You missed the nice young man straight to Harry’s right, who made an unfortunate decision to mask his flak jacket with a cummerbund.” 

James looks around the room, not daring to turn to the bar immediately. Having followed the trajectory of the man’s gaze, he’s ready to agree with Merlin: probably their mark’s guard, probably covering the exit through the kitchen.

“Guilty as charged,” he agrees easily. “Was too dazzled by Harry to notice anything around him.”

“That is not an uncommon occurrence.” James can hear a smile in Merlin’s voice.

Harry grins with a corner of his mouth, but does not dare join the conversation; with that grin still on his lips, he finally catches the eyes of their mark.

James walks over to a roulette table that would afford him the best view of the bar, and throws his chips all over the layout. While he plays up his excitement to blend in, he does genuinely like the game, going mostly for outside bets, colours or dozens, the payoff negligible but the thrill of winning pretty steady.

When he lifts his gaze towards the bar, the events progress as if in a time-lapse video: Harry licking his lips without taking his gaze off their mark, currently outside James’ field of vision; Harry undoing another button of his shirt; a burly man walking up to Harry.

James tosses a chip up and catches it with his open palm. “Today’s my lucky day,” he announces to anybody who would listen.

“James,” Merlin says tensely, and he looks up at once. Their mark is firmly clasping Harry’s wrist, and the bodyguard next to him has his arm inside his jacket, poised on a gun. Harry is smiling his goofy smile of an absent-minded intellectual, but that does not seem to do much towards dispelling the tension. There goes the easy plan of getting to the arms dealer’s notebook with the contacts through his pants, thinks James, adrenaline taking the wheel.

He places a straight bet on 22 to minimize his chances of winning, and disentangles himself from the small crowd around the roulette table. Arms stretched out for an embrace, he heads for the bar at a brisk pace.

“Damien, you fucking bastard,” he yells from far enough for it to become a spectacle. “You said you’d call, you wanker!”

He hopes that he looks inconspicuous enough, an inoffensive if ill-mannered young man prone to melodramatic gestures and misplaced bouts of jealousy. Everybody knows that any agents worth their salt would never attract this much attention, right? Taking a deep breath and hoping for the best, he crosses the last steps separating them and slaps Harry. If he makes enough of a scene, killing them will probably be deemed too much trouble. As their mark wheels on him, James narrows his eyes.

“And who the hell are you, if I may ask?”

God, he wishes he could just turn and check if the guard let go of his gun, but that would blow his cover. He hopes Harry’s on it, except that the slap was apparently too hard, and there’s a trickle of blood running from one of his nostrils. Momentary hesitation crosses their mark’s face, and then he straightens, barely reaching past James’s chin even then, and makes a grand pronouncement, “I’m someone who will take this man home, and show him how proper gentlemen are to behave.”

All James hoped for going in was to extricate Harry from the quagmire, but it turned out even better. He might have inadvertently saved their mission, unless he bumbles the last lines. Preparing to be clocked in the jaw for the team, he leans over their mark and tries to make a grab for Harry’s collar. That is also when a throwing knife holster in his sleeve gets unfastened, and, tantalizingly slow, the lights of the bar flashing over the blade, a knife drops to the floor right at his feet with a loud clang.

Before James has time to decide if he can just kick the knife farther into the crowd and pretend it never happened, Merlin barks over the comms, “Guard at seven.”

“Well, that’s embarrassing,” James sighs, and whips out his gun to take off the guard who had a Taurus trained on him. 

Out of all the missions he’s never been on, bang and burn have always been his favourite kind. A surge of adrenaline sweeps him up, makes him turn around on his heels just in time to see Harry knock out the guard to his right; James breaks his fall and uses him as a shield while he shoots at the other ones into the crowd, because cowering behind the body of a man wearing a flak vest is much better than wearing one yourself. Double the protection, none of the sartorial limitations.

He’s done with their mark’s babysitters almost before he has time to properly relax into the assignment and enjoy himself, but the others are starting to get jumpy too, so the evening is bound to be fun.

Reloading, he’s suddenly made aware of movement behind him. James turns around briskly. Their mark has Harry in a chokehold, a Glock pressed to his temple. Of course, it won’t take Harry more than a couple of seconds to electrocute the man with his signet ring, but that would not leave James much space to play the hero, would it? They wanted to get to the man’s contacts, but shooting him through the head to prevent him from any illegal meddlings in the future must be the second-best policy, James concludes, and does just that.

“We will have to have words about that,” Merlin notes through the earpiece.

“Quite a lot of words,” Harry says, claiming the Glock for himself and shooting at one of the advancing goons.

“Most of them not fit to print,” adds Merlin with a sigh of resignation as Harry and James escape through the kitchen.

They ditch their blood-spattered jackets behind the casino. “A fiver says I can beat you to the rendezvous point,” James gasps through a surge of laughter.

“Hell no,” Harry clasps at his shoulder, turning him around. “Give me your gun.”

“Fuck no,” James raises his arm, the Kingsman-issue gun barely out of Harry’s reach.

“Language,” Harry says scornfully, and yanks at his elbow.

Harry wraps both his palms around James’ hand, carefully unclasping his fingers. As gun safety goes, this practically begs for a Darwin prize, but James relaxes into his firm touch and eventually relinquishes the gun.

Harry drops his gun’s magazine into his breast pocket, and then, having pushed his glasses up, drags one of James’ lids up and stares into his eye, clucking his tongue. That makes eye-rolling somewhat complicated, but James manages.

“I’m not dragging you to HQ like this,” Harry says somberly.

“I’m fine,” James snipes. “No idea what you are on about.”

Harry scrutinizes him for another moment, and then his face relaxes into a familiar goofy grin. “Of course you are. But the evening can still end with a bang. Come on, there’s a Kingsman safehouse not far from here.”

He barely has time to reconsider and run through all the mandatory bang and burn jokes that the situation calls for before they reach the safehouse, situated in a new nondescript highrise that was probably marketed as luxury, mostly for the nouveaux riches who wouldn’t know luxury if it danced in front of them in a negligee. 

In the elevator, he pulls his glasses off, angrily snaps them shut to cut off the feed, but when he reaches for Harry’s, he bats his hand away with a disarming smile. The glasses stay on, and streaming. There’s a lump in James’ throat as he takes the three steps from the elevator to the flat, and his legs turn to jelly.

The moment the door snaps shut behind them, Harry is all over him, kissing and biting and tugging at the items of clothing that get in his way. James knows Merlin might be watching, and knows he’s probably blowing whatever chance he might have had with the man, but he’s not stupid enough to not be aware that the odds were never good, while Harry is there, thrumming with nervous energy, gregarious, all happy exuberance and curious probing hands. Whatever arrangement Merlin and Harry have, it’s up to Harry to get that sorted, he decides, and answers Harry’s kiss, cupping his face in his palms.

Harry disentangles himself from the embrace for barely long enough to yank his trousers and pants down, and fishes a tube of lube out of his jacket. James catches it one-handed, and freezes. 

“Well?” One eyebrow raised, Harry helps James coat his fingers with lube, and plops down at the edge of the table. 

Harry is already hard, bucks his hips appreciatively the moment James slides his fingers against the rim of his hole. James leans in, presses his nose to Harry’s neck, overwhelmed with the warm smell, and joy, and his own arousal. He pushes a finger in and bites down on Harry’s shoulder at the same time, and Harry arches under him with an appreciative gasp. Harry is wonderful, James concludes breathlessly: utterly, impossibly unrepressed, clinging tight to his fingers, blindly pressing kisses to his face. He couldn’t wish for anything better for his first, or at least shouldn’t.

“What are you waiting for?” With an exasperated huff, Harry reaches down, his fingers pressing and sliding against James’ as he helps work himself open. James is mesmerized by his face, brows knit together in concentration, a fine sheen of sweat appearing on his brow; he kisses Harry’s forehead as Harry twists, having pressed on something inside.

“Fine, do it,” Harry barks. James lines up and pushes, and Harry is still too tight, almost painfully so. He nudges Harry’s thighs further apart, lifts his gaze to check if Harry’s alright, this cannot be comfortable- Harry’s eyes are wide and wild with glee behind his horn-rimmed glasses. James did not think about Merlin for all of two minutes, and now he cannot think of anything but. A moan escaping his lips completely against his will, he rams all the way in, and keeps slamming his hips even when he knows he cannot reach any further, doing what Merlin must have been doing all these years, slamming into the space that belongs to Merlin.

Harry scrabbles at his shoulders and pulls him down into an embrace. His words are barely audible through his ragged breathing, James feels them through his skin rather than hears, and he sure hopes that they are too quiet to be picked up by the mic. 

“Don’t worry, I know how you look at him.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot not write angst. I wish I could, but it's a compulsion XD

Harry goes about sex as if he invented it, joyfully curious and sloppy in his enthusiasm. Wiping drool off his chin as Harry lets James’ cock slip out of his mouth with a wet sound, James cannot help wondering if there’s another, more professional persona that Harry practiced and kept for missions; cannot help wondering what he’s like with Merlin too, after years of familiarity. He knows better than to pry.

“Aren’t you a gorgeous virile thing,” Harry hums, running his palms all over James’ chest, “bred for generations to look marvelous, like a stallion.”

James chuckles. “Admit it already, you are only here because humping a mirror is inconvenient and generally frowned upon.” 

That kills the mood for a second; third day into fucking Harry, and he’s already overthinking how he fits into the scheme. But then, Harry pulls up and kisses him, James’ taste still on his tongue and lips, and James cannot think about anything else.

The answer, or something not altogether dissimilar from one, comes the next day, when James wanders after hours into a gallery running around the perimeter of the gym, and freezes.

A level below him, Merlin sits on the mats, hugging his knees to his chest, and stares off into mid-distance. Harry lets go of his shoulder and sits down next to him, their elbows almost touching, but not quite.

“If you don’t want to talk about it, fine. Want to talk about how you’ve missed the fact that the new one’s a little too trigger-happy instead?” Harry’s voice is so fake in its nonchalance that it hurts.

James knows that he should silently walk away, the designation hurts him, and there’s no way this could get any better, but he stays. An agent has to gather information, even if it comes at a cost. 

The phrase gets a rise out of Merlin, however. Without quite turning to Harry, he asks, “What do you suggest, we shoot him?”

The pause is a bit too long to be altogether comfortable.

“I know it’s not as pressing for you, Mister I’m Not Sure If Kingsman Is The Right Thing For Me, but we, the brawn, are stuck together until death do us part. It’s your job to weed out those that are begging for a bullet. He is a liability,” Harry says softly, but with a certain finality to his words.

Merlin finally turns towards Harry and nudges at his shoulder with a fist. “So were you. So am I. So’s fucking everybody.”

“Except for Percy,” Harry chuckles.

“Yes, except for Percy, which is why he’s no longer invited for drinks.”

Harry presses his face to Merlin’s shoulder, and the next words come out muffled. James can barely hear his “But you stepped up for me.”

James wants to punch Harry, right there and then, for the vulnerability one is trained not to show, for the raw need that is borderline indecent.

But there’s a smile of Merlin’s lips, genuine and proud, as he says, “The time scheduled for writing your reports went on my calendar as ‘creative writing.’”

“Step up for him,” Harry says with a scowl. “And none of that ‘I’m not sure I need Kingsman’ bullshit of yours, because he fucking does. He’ll not make it outside, while he can be brilliant here.”

For a second, James wonders if this is what Harry truly, really means, before he realizes that, if it’s true for him, it also must be true for Harry himself, or else he wouldn’t be there, his forehead pressed to the shoulder of the man they both love, in their different ways. And then, he lifts his eyes, and meets Merlin’s gaze. He is so, so fucked. Merlin nods briefly, acknowledging his presence, and then pulls Harry up by his shoulder, making sure he never looks in James’ direction. James does not breathe out until the men are gone.

He saunters into Merlin’s office the next day, his most insouciant smile firmly planted on his lips. This goes against everything he was ever taught, not showing a chink in your armour, and not going for anybody else’s either; he straightens his shoulders to not let on that he’s more horrified than he was in Afghanistan, or possibly ever, if you don’t count being scared of the roiling darkness as a child.

Merlin swivels in his chair as James takes a step too close, hovering over him. “So, the plan to shoot me is off? Because I’ll have to fight you, and, since you don’t want to-”

Merlin scowls. “That wasn’t ever the plan. Harry’s just prone to dramatic exaggerations.”

“Good, because I’m sure I could take you out.”

“I’m sure you would like to try,” Merlin sniggers, and, after a pause, adds, “Ask whatever you want.”

He probably means a question rather than a request, but James does not care. Choking on his love, circling around it like one would circle around a coiled poisonous snake, he says, “You are a right bastard, sir. With all due respect.”

“That’s already been said, once or twice, by better men too. If you don’t have anything more pressing-”

“He’s afraid of losing you,” James finally stammers out.

That gets him a raised eyebrow. “And you think, stick your dick into the man a couple times, and you already have him all figured out?”

Offended as he is, both for Harry and for himself, James is willing to brush that aside. Hovering over Merlin, he says, “What’s there to know? He wears his heart on his sleeve. Tell him that you will not leave.”

“Your assumption that you know me is even more absurd than your claim to understanding him.”

However, Merlin does not say no, and nor does he kick James out, which James takes as an invitation to continue. “But you will not. Where else would they let you mess with people’s lives so? And he might be too in love to say that.”

‘And I’m so in love with you, or with him, that I want to hurt you,’ James thinks, but does not say out loud. The thought that he has no chance of actually hurting Merlin is comforting; at best, he’d annoy him by overstepping the boundaries, and that he can live with. “Tell him,” he presses.

It starts with a low chuckle, but in a second Merlin’s outright guffawing; on the list of things that James expected – a punch, or an insult, or electrocution, because god knows what Merlin keeps in his drawers – this comes about last. “You think you’d make an excellent agent, don’t you?” Merlin asks, rasping with laughter. “Who knows, you just might be right.”


	4. Chapter 4

Crawling through a ventilation shaft several weeks later, James keeps thinking about what Merlin said in the chopper, minutes after James became Lancelot. Love trains you into believing that there are things worth protecting at the cost of your life, Merlin said. Easy for the prick to throw his inane grandiloquence about: isn’t him who’s now picking up decades of accumulated dirt with a new suit, is it? 

The ventilation shaft is too narrow to crawl through properly, James keeps banging his knees against the casing when he tries to push forward, and swears under his breath hoping that all the racket will be covered by the customary sleepy noises of an old building. It’s an undignified shimmy, painfully slow. Somehow, movie heroes always made those particular means of getting into buildings you are not invited into look more dignified. James does not like the turn this day took one bit.

The morning did not come with a promise of any surprise excursions through unsanitary confined spaces.

“Remember that one time when you shot the mark we very much wanted alive and well?” Merlin asked absentmindedly, his fingers flying over the assortment of metal details and fuses laid out on his table. 

“Gentlemen don’t remind other gentlemen of past indiscretions,” James scoffed, kicking his feet up on the desk opposite. 

He expected things to change after he barged into Merlin’s office uninvited and started giving him unbidden advice; he’s surprised by how little they did, and not altogether in ways he expected. Merlin still would occasionally slip into his habitual drill sergeant mode, much the way one would slip into a dressing gown at the end of a really long day, but he also lets more things slide. James knew nothing but Merlin’s drill sergeant role, and, much though he craved the crisp clarity of it, he lapped up the new sides of Merlin like a man who went hungry for far too long would lick up honey.

“Actually,” Merlin drawled, scrutinizing some cog through a magnifying glass, “you wouldn’t believe how many intelligence agencies got their moles into the gun smuggling ring with the upheaval caused by his death.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?” James tilted his head, made an effort not to avert his gaze when Merlin looked up at him. “We love us some The Man Who Was Thursday revival.”

“Don’t tell Arthur I told you that.” Merlin’s smile was so smug that James balled up the draft of his report and threw it at Merlin.

“The way you assume that all my accomplishments are down to your training yet everything one might construe as a mistake is somehow my fault is impolite, impertinent, and improper.”

Merlin remained unperturbed. “Why else would I bother with training you all?”

“Explosives before lunchtime? That’s so pedestrian.” Harry did not bother to knock before entering, leaned over Merlin without much concern for his private space, but without quite touching him either.

After James’ uncalled-for PSA, Harry has been apprehensive about showing affection to either one of them in the presence of the other, and when he sneaks into James’ room the nights when James stays at the manor, it’s guilty and quick. James does not know what Harry’s arrangement is with Merlin, nor does he want to; as long as he does not, he can hold onto a dream that there’s room for him in it.

Preoccupied with his toys, Merlin touched Harry’s palm in a brief caress before plunging back into constructing the device he has been working on for the last couple of hours. “There are reports that our smugglers are meeting with some of the Hamas leadership today. It’s a perfect opportunity for us: a detached building, no collateral. Arthur cleared me to plant the bomb.”

James tenses at Harry’s voice, spiked with worry, “You have not been in the field for years.”

“Well, I deserve some fun too, don’t I?”

Merlin was so unselfconsciously proud of himself, and his toys, and his work, that James almost sniped at Harry for spoiling it all with his concern. Who’d have thought. He pulls up on his elbows, covering the last inches separating him from the grate over the airshaft opening, and pauses for a second before knocking it loose.

“Oh yes, why don’t we take a nap,” Harry rasps through a cough from somewhere behind him. “We still have seventeen minutes or so before the place goes up in flames.”

The opening is too narrow, and for several decidedly unpleasant seconds James contemplates a very real possibility that he will get stuck. The terrorists would have a good laugh poking at his legs dangling from the ceiling with various pointy objects, he thinks through a surge of panic, and finally tumbles to the floor in a somewhat inelegant heap. Of course, Harry, poseur extraordinaire, slides down with effortless grace, as if he had spent half his lifetime perfecting ways to turn sweaty dusty crawls through airshafts into a sort of runway walk.

James pulls him into a clinch of a hug; his lips taste of dust. “Go find him.”

Harry pats him on the shoulder, awkward for once. “Go shoot them all. And remember, you have to start working on getting out at 5:16. Otherwise it would be a waste of a perfectly good body.”

“Practice what you preach,” James says pompously, and they part ways.

Arthur’s full of shit, that much’s a given, but so’s Merlin. It’s not jumping on the grenade for those you love that constitutes love, James thinks. It’s getting them out alive, and shooting anybody who dared lift a finger against them, and grilling them forever for being stupid enough to get caught.

As he races through the corridors to reach the conference room where the meeting was supposed to take place, his worries finally subside. For the first time since he walked into Arthur’s office earlier that morning, he can think clearly, propelled forward on muscle memory and training instilled in him by Merlin, slipping into a role that is neither fully him nor similar to his mentor. He’s not James anymore; he’s Lancelot, as he should be.

Crossing the mostly empty corridors and carefully stepping over the bodies of those who had the misfortune to step into his path, James idly wonders if Arthur regained consciousness yet. Serves the man right, James thinks with spite. Having learned that Merlin was captured, Arthur had every right to compare the benefits and costs and decide to sacrifice him in the same blast that would wipe out the terrorists; what he had absolutely no right to assume is that James would go along with that plan. Such a lapse of judgement would have cost Arthur his life on a mission, so James cannot be blamed for teaching him a lesson by knocking him out with the man’s own watch.

Twelve minutes before he has to get the hell out; less, if one of the guards finds the bomb before that and tries to tamper with it. The need to be quiet cramps James’ style. He itches to throw a welcoming grenade down the stairwell he’s paused before, but if he causes enough racket, their marks would still have time to clear the premises. Grateful for the silencers for once, he toes a pen down the stairwell to attract the guards’ attention, and counts the seconds. There’s a science to figuring out the exact moment when they are still in range, but with their guard already down, but it is not a science James was ever particularly interested in mastering. Knowing that he is faster than most, and a far better shot, he steps around the corner without bothering to so much as crouch down, and starts shooting.

That gets him one floor up, with ten minutes to go. He wonders if Harry found Merlin yet, if Merlin is okay, but even those thoughts take the back seat to the pure wordless joy of moving swiftly through the air ringing with bullets. He ducks below the line of fire without slowing his trot, petulantly shoots the guard closest to him in the stomach.

Common sense dictates that shooting in a brawl in a confined space, with no way to predict how you bullets might ricochet, should never be practiced before compiling a comprehensive will, but James is of the firm belief that common sense is overrated. As the closest guard tries to clock him in the temple with the butt of his gun, James slips below his swinging arm and shoots the one right behind him, before grabbing the elbow of the closer one and throwing him to the side, making his head connect with a wall with a satisfying thud. James shoots him through the neck and manages to avoid most of the blood spurts; not that his suit does not need dry cleaning after his venture through the airshaft, but drying blood stinks.

He is almost at the entrance to the conference room, with little idea of how much time has passed, when pain blossoms through his shoulder blade. He whips around on the force of impact as much as by instinct. The guard whom he shot in the stomach managed to steady his hands for long enough to shoot at James, the bugger. If not for the bulletproof suit, he would have been deeply, irrevocably fucked. James shoots him, properly this time, drops his Beretta and swings around the assault rifle slung over his shoulder. It’s party time.

James knows that nothing makes Merlin as happy as paperwork, so he grabs all the documents that he can see on the table and shoves them under his shirt: contacts-schmontacts, but boys in tech would sure cream themselves over this. It’s his first time going through the pockets of the men he just shot, and this is too close to marauding for him to be altogether comfortable with the prospect, but he studiously collects all their cell phones too. Merlin’d better be alive, and well, and appreciative all the ethically dubious things James does for love.

James gets out with almost five minutes to go, having encountered little resistance on the way out. This feels luxurious, indulgent even, except that Harry and Merlin are nowhere in sight. He jogs to the meeting point, waves at their driver who’s a good sport, despite James having persuaded him to participate in an unauthorized mission at gunpoint, and promptly turns back. He circles around the compound, risking to attract more attention or bullets that is, strictly speaking, necessary for a successful ending of the day. Two minutes before things go boom.

There’s no point to going in again, he tells himself, adrenaline thrumming in his veins. Harry knows to make for the exit in time, even if he does not find Merlin, which will never happen anyway. Ninety seconds.

What if Harry got held up somewhere close to the exit? The risk is always highest by the exit, or so James was told: never get smug and sloppy when the door’s in sight. Maybe he should go and check, and he will have just enough time to get back and reach the safe distance before the bomb goes off.

He’s almost at the door, with fifty seconds to go, when they finally limp out, Merlin dragged by Harry rather than leaning on him, and even that added weight does not hamper Harry’s proud saunter. James runs up to them, offering his shoulder, and thus they set off into the sunset.

They are safely past a corner when the building collapses; James coughs as the dust starts to settle, and then pulls his men into a hug. They are the same height, and he has to stand on tiptoe to loom over then.

“I love you,” he says to nobody in particular, not even knowing if they can hear him in post-explosion daze, and then, without turning around, points at the dense rising smoke behind him with his thumb. Something crashes with a nerve-rending screeching creak. “Also, I loved _that_. We should do that more often.”


	5. Chapter 5

“If I may say so, sir, I’m really glad that they got you out,” Davis the driver says, helping to maneuver Merlin into the backseat.

Damn well he is, since James might have promised to shoot Davis if he did not get him and Harry to the compound in time. James hopes that all the traffic violations fines they amassed on the way are not coming out of his pocket, although they likely are, seeing how he’s probably no longer an agent, on account of him having assaulted the head of the agency, abducted a driver, and committed a number of less serious offences that he’s not in the mood to bring up.

“Right,” Merlin says, and James does not like his tone one bit. “What did I miss?”

“They are kicking me out,” James says, “for saving your ass. I expect you to provide me with a barrel of Jack Daniel’s as a parting gift. Or, you know, make that two barrels.”

Harry rolls his eyes. “Nobody’s kicking you out. Besides, being overly dramatic is unbefitting a gentleman, and it does not suit you.”

“ _Of course_ it suits me,” James says, pushing his fingers through his hair. “Don’t assume that I did not perfect the act in front of a mirror.”

His eyebrow cocked in amusement, Merlin flicks his gaze from James to Harry. “God save us all. Kingsman barely survived one Harry Hart, and I seriously doubt if it can survive two. You do realize that you two are identical, I suppose?”

“We are not,” they say in horrified unison. Merlin looks more smug than anybody so beat up has any right to be. 

To wipe that smirk off his face, James drawls, “For one, I’m more likely to call you on you bullshit. Sir. ” 

“That you are,” Merlin smiles, for once with genuine affection, and reaches over to ruffle James’ hair.

James leans into the touch, his eyes flitting closed, and relaxes into the warmth of those strong fingers that linger over his skin for what he hopes is a moment too long, or has to be. The fingers run over the nape of his neck, following the curve of the back of his head, with too much firmness to be a caress, and just enough thoroughness of curiosity to give him hope for more. After several missed heartbeats, the weight of another palm settles on the back of his head as Harry covers Merlin’s palm with his, grounding it, keeping it there.

James weighs his chances. Grabbing at the first illusory opportunity is hardly the best strategy, but it will have to do as a tactical decision, since waiting is the one thing that he emphatically does not believe in, and does not have the constitution for. He plunges on with the courage of a man who has nothing to lose. “And so that you’ll have something to regret, sir, on all those long and cold winter nights when I’m gone and you need someone to warm the end of your bed that is not occupied by Harry, you should probably know that I would be up for that. Warming the bed. Foot rubs. And all that tosh. Not that it matters, since I am getting kicked out-”

He finally trails off. Maybe he should have run the speech by Harry first. Harry could have offered input from his position of hard-won knowledge, or put his foot down altogether. James cautiously lifts his eyes at the man, and Harry flashes him a high five. Well, burning bridges is the one sight that he’ll never grow tired of, James supposes with the joy of a pyromaniac.

This time, it is Merlin who rolls his eyes. “Nobody’s kicking you out.”

“Oh-” James’ lips curl around the breath he did not realize he was holding. “Well, something to consider then. I’m good.”

“He’s good enough. He’ll learn,” Harry clarifies, and, as James is about to object, the man turns to him. “Did you really knock Arthur out?”

James juts his chin out defiantly. “He tried to pat me on the shoulder while telling me that we would not be able to get Merlin out. His watch was right there. He had it coming.”

Harry lets out a wistful sigh. “The dreams of generations of recruits finally fulfilled.”

James is angry at himself for the overwhelming cowardly relief that washes over him as they move on to safer topics, the ones that do not include him offering what neither of his mentors apparently want. A thin raw voice at the back of his mind tempts him to clarify that he would not presume to change what they have, just eel through whatever spaces are left between their jagged edges, and by God, there’s no shortage of those in that particular china shop; but he shuts that voice down.

The rest of the drive passes in drowsy silence. It’s only as the gravel of the Kingsman manor driveway rustles under the wheels that Merlin awkwardly half-turns towards Harry, obviously nursing what could be either a bad bruise or a cracked rib. 

“Harry?” James has seen them do it before, entire conversations crammed into a couple of syllables and minor fleeting changes in facial expressions, and he both envies them that depth of familiarity, and dreads the vulnerability of it.

“Are you sure?” Merlin asks, tracing the outline of Harry’s lips. “If there’s so much as a shred of a doubt-”

Harry bats his hand away, but there’s a manic grin on his face as he starts speaking. “Oh, to hell with it, you heard him, and, much as it pains me to agree with him on anything, he is right. He will call you on your bullshit. Maybe he would even make you grow up, but, to be perfectly honest, I’m not holding my breath for that.”

“I’m the most mature person in this car,” Merlin huffs, “I wouldn’t have been made a handler otherwise.”

“With all due respect sir, the present company does set the bar rather low on that particular front,” James says, finally stretching out his legs and wedging one foot between Merlin’s and Harry’s.

“It’s always good to see a young man capable of recognizing his shortcomings,” Harry says pompously, but the corner of his mouth twitches in a barely contained grin.

As the car grounds to a halts, Merlin lets out a sigh and places a hand on James’ knee. “The answer is a conditional yes, predicated on whether you can stop calling me ‘sir.’”

Arthur waits for them on the porch, tapping one heel against the other, toying with the knife embedded in his Oxfords. Harry gets out of the car first; flanking Merlin on both sides, they start towards the manor, and James feels like he can take on the whole wide world.


End file.
